--- title: "Before entering another marketplace, measure demand and profit | Nasam" description: "A new marketplace may bring additional orders or move existing customers to a more expensive channel. Test the product, stock, and margin before expanding." url: https://nasam.co/en/blog/marketplace-growth-without-channel-blindness lang: en --- # Before entering another marketplace, measure demand and profit A new marketplace may bring additional orders or move existing customers to a more expensive channel. Test the product, stock, and margin before expanding. The point Start with a small product set. Compare total orders, contribution margin, and delivery performance before allocating more stock. ## Did the new channel add demand? A marketplace can introduce a product to shoppers who would not have visited your own store. It can also attract people who already intended to buy from you. Higher marketplace order volume therefore does not always translate into the same increase in total brand sales. If the marketplace draws from a stock pool needed by a more profitable channel, the trade-off can be larger than the new order count suggests. Before a trial, record sales of the products you plan to list on your existing channels. Capture units, orders, realized selling price after discounts, and returns. Keep this baseline so that you can compare total brand sales after launch, rather than only the marketplace's new dashboard. A product's traffic may change without a corresponding change in purchases, so use completed orders alongside visits. Consider a hypothetical month. Your direct store sold 100 units of one product before launch. After listing it on a new marketplace, that marketplace sold 50 units while store sales fell to 60. Combined sales reached 110 units: 10 more than before, rather than 50 more. This does not prove that 40 individual customers switched channels. Seasonality, a changed price, or a promotion could explain part of the difference. It does show why every marketplace order cannot automatically be counted as new demand. Compare equivalent periods where you can. Record changes in advertising, discounts, and availability in the old channels during the trial. A store stockout makes the marketplace look strong for a reason unrelated to its reach. Compare the same product and pack size across channels; a two-pack in one place and a single item in another are not a like-for-like demand test. If conditions changed materially, describe the result as inconclusive and extend or repeat the trial. ## Calculate contribution for the same product on each channel Make a separate calculation for each product and channel. Start with the selling price the customer actually paid. Subtract the cost of goods, marketplace commission, the cost of storing and shipping the order, advertising attributable to it, and a sensible allowance for returns. The result is an approximate order contribution, not company net profit. A blended average across channels can hide a product that sells briskly but leaves too little after its marketplace costs. Amazon Saudi Arabia's published pricing explains that selling fees differ by product category and fulfillment method, and that advertising can add a cost when used. Check the current terms for your account and product. Do not carry the margin from your own store into a new marketplace unchanged, and do not assume two marketplaces charge the same amount for a similar order. [[1]](https://sell.amazon.sa/en/pricing) Where a channel uses a different selling price or promotion, calculate margin from that channel's realized price. Continue the hypothetical example. Suppose each unit sold through your store contributes SAR 20 after its associated costs, while each unit sold through the new marketplace contributes SAR 12. Fifty marketplace units add SAR 600 of contribution. The 40 fewer store units represent SAR 800 of contribution no longer earned there. On those assumptions, total units rose but combined contribution fell by SAR 200. These are illustrative amounts, not a marketplace fee schedule or a forecast for your brand. Account for timing before treating this as a final result. An order can appear today while a fee adjustment or return posts later. Separate provisional contribution on new orders from settled contribution, and compare equivalent periods. Also record work that may not appear as an individual marketplace fee: product imagery, packaging changes, customer service, reconciliation, and the time needed to maintain listings. A channel is a continuing operation, not just a row of transaction fees. **A three-part channel trial** - 01 Demand Did the channel add orders or shift them from another channel? - 02 Margin What remains for this product after the channel's costs? - 03 Fulfillment Can stock and operations keep the delivery promise? Compare the same product over the same period, then apply a pre-set condition to expand or stop the trial. ## Check stock and delivery capacity before adding listings If the marketplace stores and ships a product, the units you send there become a separate pool from units at your own warehouse. They must be received and made available under that marketplace's process. If your team ships the orders, ask how many additional parcels it can prepare and hand to a carrier each day without missing the promised dispatch time. Opening a marketplace does not remove an inventory shortage or warehouse constraint. Set aside enough units to run the trial without disrupting current customers. Monitor days of cover in each stock pool and the lead time for replenishment. A fast-moving product may need another shipment before a monthly report gives you a clear picture of demand. A seasonal product can lose its selling window while stock is in transit. These practical constraints should affect the initial allocation, not become surprises after launch. Inspect the product page as a shopper would on every channel. Check the pack size, price, availability, and delivery date. The same SKU can be delivered quickly from a nearby warehouse on one channel and much later from another. If your operation cannot meet the promised delivery date, incremental orders may bring cancellations or poor service. Treat the customer experience as part of the test, alongside demand and margin. There is also work behind the order: setting up listings, matching product codes, handling cancellations and returns, and reconciling payments. Assign responsibility for these tasks before adding a channel. If each order needs manual intervention to ship on time, test whether the team could keep up at twice the trial volume. A smooth first week at low volume does not establish that the process can scale. ## Decide the trial rules before launch Choose a small group of products whose costs and stock levels you already understand. State the trial period, the units allocated to the marketplace, your minimum acceptable contribution, and the maximum shipping delay you can tolerate. Record the starting performance of existing channels. These rules turn the next review into a decision about whether to add stock, adjust the setup, or stop, instead of a reaction to a promising sales graph. Review three outcomes for each product every week. Did total brand demand rise, or did sales merely move between channels? Did contribution stay acceptable after marketplace fees, ads, and returns? Were orders delivered to the promised standard? If one answer is weak, diagnose it before listing more products. The answer could be a price change, a different fulfillment route, or a better stock allocation. It does not have to be an all-or-nothing judgment on the marketplace. Do not generalize one product's result to the whole catalog. A small item with steady demand may work under one fee and shipping structure while a bulky item does not. Compare each product using its own costs, demand, and replenishment pattern. Expand only the products that meet the trial conditions. Having another sales channel is useful when it improves the business's total contribution and service, not merely because its own order count looks impressive. If the trial overlaps a major promotion, seasonal peak, or stock interruption, it may not support a confident decision. Continue into a more comparable period or rerun a smaller test. Note every important change to price, advertising, and availability when reviewing the results. Keeping that record also makes the next marketplace decision easier: you will know which assumptions held and which parts of the operation need work before allocating more inventory. ## Sources - [Amazon Saudi Arabia: fees by category and fulfillment method](https://sell.amazon.sa/en/pricing) NASAM LETTER ## One useful email a week A short read on markets, growth, and the economics of selling. Free, with an unsubscribe link in every email. See how we use your email in our [privacy policy](https://nasam.co/en/privacy). ## Keep reading